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Friday, Mar 11, 2005

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National

BJP isolated at all-party meet

By Neena Vyas

NEW DELHI, MARCH 10. The Bharatiya Janata Party today found itself almost completely isolated at the all-party meeting called by the Lok Sabha Speaker, Somnath Chatterjee, to discuss constitutional issues related to the separation of powers of the judiciary and the legislature arising from the interim order of the Supreme Court on the Jharkhand matter.

Prabhunath Singh, representative of the Janata Dal (United) at the meeting, said the party was "saddened" by the court order "although the outcome gives us happiness." The order was not in the best interests of parliamentary democracy. Two other National Democratic Alliance parties, the Biju Janata Dal and the Telugu Desam Party, represented by B.K. Tripathi and Yerran Naidu, did not say much, pleading that they would have to discuss the issue with their party leadership. There were no representatives of the Shiv Sena and the Akali Dal. The leaders of the other parties endorsed the decision favouring a Presidential Reference.

BJP walks out

Although it was the BJP deputy leader in the Lok Sabha, V.K. Malhotra, who suggested that such a meeting be called — the Speaker said he agreed to Mr. Malhotra's suggestion — the BJP leaders walked out of the meeting after saying their bit.

Although Mr. Malhotra informed the press at about 3 p.m. that the Speaker would be calling a meeting of party leaders, the Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, Jaswant Singh, told the press after he left the meeting that he learnt about it "just 10 minutes" before it started.

Apparently, the Speaker asked Mr. Jaswant Singh to speak first and after that, the deputy leaders, Sushma Swaraj and Mr. Malhotra had their say. But immediately after expressing their views that nothing should be done to create a confrontation between the judiciary and the legislature, they walked out, according to a participant at the meeting.

The National Conference leader, Omar Abdullah, took "strong exception" to this "unparliamentary behaviour" and other participants said: "Mr. Abdullah made a scathing attack on the BJP saying that they did not have the courtesy to listen to anybody else ... they expressed their opinion and then walked out."

None of the leaders of the allied parties of the NDA left before the meeting ended. One member who attended the meeting said: "Only the BJP members walked out ... none of their NDA partners left ... that tells you whether the allies are with the BJP or not with the BJP on this."

Mr. Jaswant Singh told the press that a ruling party should not take umbrage when a court order goes against it. "Anyone who sits in the Chair has to learn to swallow the bitter pills." He said the Jharkhand Governor had played "a partisan role" by giving the Soren Government too much time to take a trust vote. However, when asked whether the outer limit of such time was 13 days, as given to the Vajpayee Government by the then President in 1996, he said: "There is no outer limit." Was the BJP in favour of fixing the outer limit by law? His response was that there could not be a law for everything.

Appeal to Speaker

He appealed to the Speaker not to make any statement: "My appeal to the Speaker on an important issue like this is, please do not divide the House." He said the BJP wished to "preserve the viability of the legislature, the functioning of the executive and the judiciary."

Mr. Singh was asked whether the 1996 Vajpayee Government and the 2000 Nitish Kumar Government in Bihar were wrong in filling the nominated members' vacancies reserved for Anglo-Indians — in its recent order the Supreme Court has prohibited the Soren Government from filling that vacancy. He said: "That was done under the law, the numbers at that time were not crucial to deciding who would win or lose the trust vote."

"Browbeating courts''

Ms. Swaraj said the meeting reminded her of the Emergency as an effort was being made to "browbeat the courts." She said the BJP could not be party to a meeting where the courts were to be criticised.

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